Additional notes to the onlie begetter controversy.

Another important
echo, which has rarely been discussed,
is the identification of the youth with Christ, an echo which is
apparent
here, and leads me to suspect that the dedication is really the work of
Shakespeare. For the ONLIE. BEGETTER.
by an easy transformation becomes the 'only
begotten'
of the Gospels, and the youth, as well as the poet, by a strange
transubstantiation
or transmutation, both become Christ-like figures. In the Elizabethan
Book
of Common Prayer, in the Communion Service, or, to give it its full
title
from the BCP:

THE
ORDRE

FOR THE

ADMINISTRACION
OF THE LORDES SUPPER,

OR

HOLY
COMMUNION

the phrase is used
three times, and I give the
details below:

And the Epistle and
Gospel being ended shall be
said the Creed.

I BELEVE in
one God, the father almighty maker
of heaven and earthe, and of all thynges visible and invisible: And in
one
Lorde Jesu Christe, the onely
begotten
sonne of GOD, begotten of his father before al worldes,
god of God, lyghte of lyghte, verye God of verye God, gotten, not made,
beynge of one substance wyth the father, by whome
all thinges were made, who for us
men, and for our salvacion came doune from heaven, and was incarnate by
the holy Ghoste, of the Virgine Mary, and was made man, and was
crucified
also for us, under Poncius Pilate.

............

Then shall the priest
also say.

Hear what
comfortable words our Savior Christ
saith, to all that truly turn to him.

COME unto me
all that travaile and be heavy
laden, and I shal refreshe you. So God loved the world that he gave his
onely
begotten
sonne, to thende that al that beleve in him, should not perishe but
have
life everlastyng..............

(These quotations are
from the 1559 version of
the Book of Common Prayer, the full text of which is available on line.
To access it use this link
). I have cited the BCP rather
than the opening of
St. John's Gospel, which is the more obvious starting point, because it
is more probable that Elizabethans would be familiar with what was
always
being read in their churches than with remembrance of any private
reading
of the Bible.

Bearing in mind the
latent religious references
in many of the sonnets, most notably in 34 (St. Peter's denial of
Christ),
52 (the Beatitudes), 88 (the revilement by the Jews), 90 (abandonement
on
the cross), 105 (idolatrous love; the Holy Trinity), 108 (hallowed be
thy
name), 109 (repentance, baptism), 110 (world without end), 111
(drinking
of vinegar), 125 (oblation of himself as a loving sacrifice), this
being
only a partial list, it is almost unthinkable that the writer was
unaware
of the potential contact with New Testament reference, or indeed that
he
was unfamiliar with the Communion Service readings. One other striking
echo
also occurs in the sonnets, drawn from the very same passage of the
Communion
Service shown above which includes the 'only begotten', for the opening
line of Sonnet 53 seems to parallel the description of Christ there
given:

What is your
substance, whereof are you made, 53

beynge of
one substance wyth the father, by
whome all thinges were made,

the latter being
taken from the first BCP excerpt
above. There was also appointed to be spoken on The Feast of the
Trinity
the following:

O Lord,
almighty and everlasting God, which
art one God, one Lord, not one only person, but three persons in one substance:
for that which
we believe of the glory of the Father, the same we believe of the Son,
and
of the Holy Ghost, without
any difference
or inequality

Sonnet 53 is read and
explained usually in terms
of Neo-Platonic philosophy, but a more immediate key to its meaning
must
surely be the BCP passage above. The implication is that the youth is,
or
might be seen as, a Christ like figure. Is he of the same substance as
the
Father, that millions of strange shadows (angels?) on him tend and do
his
bidding? Yet his substance is sufficient to give light to all the
world,
though being only one, single, yet sharing the mystery of the disparate
oneness of the Trinity.

It is no doubt
strange to a modern scientific ear
that so much theological significance should be attached to the single
word
'substance' but OED gives as its primary meaning 1.Essential
nature, essence;
esp. Theol., with regard to the being of God, the divine nature or
essence
in respect of which the three Persons of the Trinity are one.
and gives the
following examples: 1450–1530 Myrr. Our
Ladye 4 The
glory of the
blessyd endeles Trinite in onehed of substaunce and of Godhede.1526 Pilgr.
Perf. (W. de W. 1531)
197
The pure
substaunce of god in his owne nature & deite.1585Dyer
Prayse of Nothing Writ. (Grosart)
77 That substance, which we
communicate with Angels,
being created of nothing.1597
Hooker Eccl.
Pol. v. lii. §3 In Christ
therefore
God and man there is a two-folde substance, not a two-folde person,
because
one person extinguisheth an other, whereas one nature cannot in another
become extinct.c1610
Women
Saints 173/11 [Arius] affirming
the Sonne of god to be of
inferiour
substance to his Father. In
addition there is: 3.c.with
reference to the
doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
with
the following examples: 1546
Gardiner Detect. Deuils Sophistrie 14b, The
substaunce of bred,
beyng conuerted into the naturall bodely
substaunce of our sauioure [printed souioure] Christe. 1565 Harding Answ.
Jewel 162b, In this Sacrament
after
consecration there remayneth+onely the accidentes and shewes, without
the
substance of bread and wyne. 1597 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v.
lxvii. §10 How the wordes of
Christ
commaunding vs to eate must needes importe
that as hee hath coupled the substance of his fleshe and the substance
of
bread together, so we together should receiue both.

It is
clear therefore that there are strong
emotive, religious and philological links between the use of the word
substance
as Shakespeare used it in sonnet 53 and its immediate reference to the
divine
nature, and particularly to how that nature revealed itself in the Holy
Trinity and in the mystery of transubstantiation (change of substance,
essence)
in the Communion Service. For it is from the communion service that the
echo is generated originally, rather than directly from the Gospels. As
the sonnet progresses, the classical references obtrude, which throw
the
reader off the scent, and they bring to the forefront a world of
mythological
figures with imagery that possibly relates to neo-Platonism, but which
is
not necessarily present in the opening lines. However the return to
more
natural imagery in the third quatrain takes us back once more to
religious
themes, the lilies of the field, Christ the giver, blessedness in the
beatitudes
(the meek, the poor, the merciful, the many shapes of blessedness).
Finally
all is rounded off with external grace and the solid foundation of the
constant
Trinity, you, none you, and you. Constancy is not specifically
highlighted
by OED as having a religious ambience, and the examples are few:

a1600
Hooker (J.), The laws of God+of
a different constitution from the former, in respect of the one's
constancy,
and the mutability of the other.

But constancy and the
Trinity are recalled in another
famous sonnet about the beloved and the Holy Trinity, 105:

Let not my
love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,

in which reference is
made to the beautiful youth
as

Still
constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference. 105.6-8.

The claim of
constancy here in the couplet of 53
is therefore an answer to the question of line 1, that the beloved does
indeed have divine qualities. Constancy is the essence of the Trinity,
the
three godheads are in fact one in substance, they are constant and
unchanging,
they express one thing, they leave aside difference. (See the excerpt
from
the Feast of the Trinity reading above). These references (in 105) are
in
fact accepted by most commentators, for they are fairly obvious and one
does not have to delve too deeply into scripture or theological texts
to
unravel them.

The importance of the
above interpretation of 53
for the argument here presented, is that it identifies the beloved with
God, a fairly close identification with the Son as begotten by the
Father.
Presumably the Father is the only begetter of his only begotten Son. .
For
the opening line of the sonnet ties in with
beynge of one substance wyth the father, by whome all thinges were made,
which occurs in the Communion Service in close proximity to the first
reference
to 'the only begotten'. This echo is taken up in what have always been
assumed
to be Thorpe's words in the dedication, 'To the onlie begetter of these
insuing sonnets', words which I suspect were in fact written by
Shakespeare.

For those who have
doubts that these sonnets are
imbued with religious hints and references, rather than say merely
having
a philosophical basis, and having strong links with neo-Platonism, it
is
worth bearing in mind that the interpretation of

Let me not
to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments 116.

which is universally
accepted as relating to words
from the marriage service given in the BCP, hinges mainly on the single
word impediments, and of course the fact that the
word (in the singular)
occurs in the Marriage Service. In 53 the key words are substance
and made, but it is significant that the words come
from the Communion
Service, the offering or oblation of the body and blood of Christ
through
the sacrament of the Eucharist. The language of the sonnets elsewhere
confirms
the imporatnce of oblation, for in 125 the beloved
giving himself
as an oblation does so as

Butmutual
render, only me for thee. 125.

The oblation
is the sacrifice on the Cross,
the ultimate sacrifice of love, and by a transformation in the poet's
mind,
the offering of himself becomes a sort of Eucharist to the beloved, as
also
in A Lover's Complaint, when the treacherous youth offers the loves and
love tokens of all his former conquests as an oblation to the maiden.
(LC.223.)

I have laboured these
points, and emphasised the
deeply religious flavour of some of the sonnets mainly to show that the
religious doctrines and their suggestiveness is fairly evident when the
connections are made between the appropriate places in the Sonnets and
the
original texts read in the Churches. I propose that these suggestions
and
echoes, although they may not have been consciously included, in the
sense
that in the writing of poetry what is or is not conscious may not be a
meaningful
distinction to make, were nevertheless not removed, but deliberately
retained
because of their power to enhance the record of the experience of
loving.

I am not hastening to
suggest that Shakespeare
was being frivolously blasphemous in using this or any of the other
biblical
echoes sprinkled throughout the sonnets. Or indeed that the sonnets are
predominantly religious in tone. For they are not, they are primarily
about
the experience of loving. What I do however suspect, because of the
frequency
and intensity of the religious echoes, is that the reference here in
the
dedication is not an unconscious one, but deliberate, and serves to
echo
and enhance the thematic content of the main work. The beloved is
like the beauteous transfigured Christ, the lover is
in many
instances like the suffering and sacrificed Christ, and the two are one
flesh, their hearts are interchangeable. It might be objected that any
work
treading so perilously close to parodying religious themes would be in
danger
of condemnation and burning, and the author might fear for his life.
Had
the Sonnets been a work of religious doctrine, it would no doubt have
been
closely scrutinised. Being mere sonnets, they could be passed on the
nod,
and no one would look too deeply into them, or at least nobody in
authority
would, and unless they became hugely popular, they would probably never
raise an eyebrow, for the Stationer's Office, which would have had
other
far more weighty matters to consider, could be considered to have done
its
job well. Yet it is interesting that one early reader has recorded
his/her
comment after the final sonnet 'What a heap of wretched Infidel Stuff'.
(Quoted in KDJ Intro. p. 169). Whether the early readers of
Shakespeare's
sonnets, who found them 'sugred', also found them blasphemous, is not
recorded.
(The sonnets that they had the opportunity to read may however not be
the
ones that we have). And it must be admitted that one has to have an ear
attuned to these matters, for the mind tends to listen more to
beauteous
comparisons and felicity of language, rather than to possibly obscure
religious
references. Nevertheless the textual echoes are quite striking. And it
is
a more probable derivation than is the relatively recent suggestion
(1987)
that ever-living (see below) is an epithet used mostly of God, and
therefore
the ever-living poet probably in this case refers to God rather than to
Shakespeare.

I have not discovered
yet if the link between 53
and the passage cited above, or indeed the link between ONLIE. BEGETTER and the only begotten
Son has been previously noted. It is possible that it has been
scrutinised
and subsequently dismissed. Yet given the dense texture of the Sonnets,
the interweaving in them of so many disparate elements, and the
frequent
and haunting echoes of the well known New Testament themes, we should
look
again at these references and acknowledge that they tie in perfectly
with
the thematic content of the Sonnets - that love is eternal and
absolute;
that human love partakes of the divine; that even if the beloved object
is imperfect (as in this case indeed he is, being a man instead of a
woman,
and being conceited and frivolous to boot), yet love makes no
distinction;
that even as divine love was willing to sacrifice all for imperfect and
sinful mankind, the creature who was really not worthy of such
suffering,
human love also can make the same sacrifice.

It is almost
unthinkable that Thorpe himself with
a full realisation of their significance could have chosen these words,
for as a publisher he would hardly have wished to have laid himself
open
to a capital charge. But, as presented to him by Shakespeare, and with
full
knowledge of their gentle secular irony, as distinct from their
religious
import, it would have been an entirely different matter.

The possibility (to
my mind the probability) that
Shakespeare wrote the dedication, does of course throw a new light on
the
Sonnets, for it would no longer be possible for us to consider them as
pirated,
or that the author wished them to be suppressed, or that he had no hand
in their publication, or that they were only written for private
circulation,
or that he considered them to be derogatory to his reputation. These
are
important considerations for any future survey of their themes and
history.

Whether or not in the
cold light of reason one
agrees with these loving postures of the poet (as outlined above), is
another
matter. But it is noticeable that the main theme is repeated in A
Lover's
Complaint, where the maid acknowledges her fault, but also acknowledges
the impossibility of responding to the precepts of love in any other
way.
Her language also is couched in religious terms (pervert,
reconciled),and in the final stanza she concludes, with no
dissenting voice being
offered by the listening poet or sympathetic shepherd, that all the
youth's
beauties, if once again presented to her in the same way

Would yet
again betray the fore-betrayed,
And new pervert a reconciled maid. LC. 328-9.